I want YOU for the KXUA Army
Here at KXUA, we’re all about experimentation. That’s what the X stands for. The U stands for you, the listener, and the A stands for how awesome we are.
That’s not true.
Anyway, the 2009/2010 school year is a countdown to something pretty exciting for us…our 10th birthday! And because of that, we’re gonna be bringing some pretty exciting changes in.
The first one you can get a sneak-peek of tonight, Tuesday May 26th, at 10:00 pm. It’s an as-of-yet unnamed show, where we just go around and interview awesome Fayetteville locals. I spent 5 hours on Saturday morning at the Farmer’s Market, just gathering some interviews. The show doesn’t have a format yet (or even a name), so tonight is about as first-run as it gets.
I’ll be welcoming comments on what you think is awesome and awful about the show, either downstairs in the comment field, on-air in the booth (575-5883), or on the relevant post on the KXUA Blog.
Who am I? I’m Jon Cox (nom de disc Cox Populi), the Promotions Director for KXUA and the host of Over Mozart’s Dead Body, a show on weird classical music.
So make sure to tune in tonight (that’s 88.3 FM, folks) and hear your neighbors and mayor and then tell me what I did wrong. Thanks.
Comments
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Christopher Spencer
May 26, 2009
Good luck on your show, Jon. I look forward to hearing it.
Will it be released on podcast as well? I too often miss the scheduled radio programs, but love taking podcasts with me while I’m out and about?
Jon Cox
May 26, 2009
Yeah. Tonight’s ‘sneak peek’ is only going to be about 15 minutes or so, but I’ll have the podcast up by this time tomorrow morning.
Womack
May 26, 2009
This should be neat.
Dgold
May 26, 2009
I’m all for it, and enjoy conducting KXUA interviews myself as well, so I’ll participate. Talk Of The Town? I know it’s not a Latin double entendre Jon, just throwing out a name to get the juices started flowing. Dgold
a. brown
May 26, 2009
How is it the 10 year anniversary already? Are you counting KRFA?
a. brown
May 26, 2009
Ok, I did the math. And I realized I started DJing 8 years ago.
Dgold
May 26, 2009
KXUA went live on the air in April 2000.
I was working with some UA students on the FCC application and University red-tape in 1999.
10 year anniversary coming up: April 2010.
John A Arkansawyer
May 27, 2009
When is KXUA going to demand one of KUAF’s HD channels. They’ve got three, and they waste one on a rebroadcast of the regular signal.
Urk
May 27, 2009
“KRFA, You can hear us in the dorms or on your TV, maybe!”
John A Arkansawyer
May 29, 2009
I’m quite serious about demanding an HD channel from KUAF. The lies that led to KUAF’s theft from the students are well-documented. If (yes, I’m a hopeless optimist) a sufficiently aggressive group of students rubbed those lies in KUAF’s face, publicly and persistently, they might get some of the stolen goods returned.
Jon Cox
May 30, 2009
It’d be lovely, but probably wouldn’t happen. Rick Stockdale is in charge of both KUAF and KXUA, though he doesn’t really care about KXUA. He doesn’t want us to be competition, basically.
John A Arkansawyer
May 30, 2009
Rick Stockdell was hired to prevent things like KXUA, yes. His career began with destruction.
However, if you look at the original application for the 10-10 grant, you’ll find that he (or whoever wrote that application, but he’s responsible for it) claimed that student government was going to continue funding KUAF during the three-year duration of the 10-10 grant.
That wasn’t true.
ASG had never been informed of the impending theft of KUAF. That year’s funding application to ASG claimed that ASG was KUAF’s only source of funding.
Kyle Kellams was the outgoing student manager that year. Whether he had any input into that application is an open question.
What is not in question is this sequence of events:
April 14, 1984: 10-10 grant approved.
April 17, 1984: ASG funds KUAF for the next year.
Kyle Kellams was president pro tem of student senate that year, and presided over the meeting where the funding was granted. Had Kyle told senate what he knew–it is not credible that he did not know about the 10-10 grant–KUAF would have been defunded, and that would have thrown a wrench into the theft.
Stockdell was hired to slit throats and break things–and turned out to be darn good at it–but Kyle has a conscience. If you were to take the available information and repeatedly rub it into their faces publicly at every opportunity, I believe he would eventually come over to your side.
Student fees put nearly a quarter million dollars into KUAF before the theft. That, and ten years of work, was the seed capital that built KUAF.
The theft was probably unstoppable, but the restitution might be within your reach. There are a fair number of people who’ve risen there over the years who have institutional memories and guilty consciences, which would give you a shot at getting this.
Dgold
June 1, 2009
KUAF is still a service of the University Of Arkansas. The University owns 2 stations. It’s fairly common for Universities to operate a National Public Radio station, AND a student radio station. That seems like a good thing.
Urk
June 1, 2009
I don’t think anyone’s saying that having two stations isn’t a good thing. But if there are two University stations, why is it that the one that is operated by students, staffed by students, and most responsive to student aesthetics, is the proverbial red-headed stepchild? And, why is it that, between the time that KUAF became an NPR affiliate (1984, just as “college radio” was becoming a national force)and 2000, KUAF was the only University station that actualy broadcast on the public airwaves? As indicated above, there’s reason to believe that the answer to these questions begins with the words “Rick Stockdell…”
In fact,Dgold, in an odd way, your (perfectly reasonable) question reminds me of part of how KUAF’s transformation was sold to the community. A phone survey was taken asking students and residents if they would support a new university station in Fayetteville that played primarily jazz and classical music and fine arts and public affairs programming. The response was very favorable. What the survey didn’t ask was whether people would support changing KUAF to that format without replacing the student-driven format that it operated under previously.
Before the change, KUAF was, in terms of programming, a pretty great little local station. It had alot of specialty shows, some tremendously experimental late-night programming, live broadcasts of local band performances, and some very very knowledgeable DJ’s. I learned alot aobut music just by growing up in a town with a station like that. But, for alot of my adult life in Fayetteville the choice for radio listening was between nicey-nice KUAF programming and commercial-laden MOR and classic rock. I’m really happy for y’all that Fayetteville now has a lively and eclectic student station, pleased that “KXUA” beat out “KRZR” for call letters (much cooler) and have fond memories of having a show for a short time when XUA first hit the airwaves. The folks that finally overcame institutional resistance/indifference and got that station going, and the ones who have kept it running really deserve congratulations! And Happy Birthday!
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